ried out in the form of
a criticism of post-Hegelian philosophy. The manuscript, two big octavo
volumes, had long been at its intended place of publication in
Westphalia, when we received the news that altered circumstances did not
permit of its being printed. We postponed the publication of the
manuscript indefinitely, all the more willingly, as we had attained our
main object, an understanding of our own position.

Since then more than forty years have elapsed, and Marx has died
without either of us having had an opportunity of coming back to the
antithesis. As regards our position with reference to Hegel, we have
explained that, as occasion has arisen, but, nowhere, as a whole. We
never came back to Feuerbach, who occupies an intermediate position
between the philosophy of Hegel and our own.

In the meantime the Marxian philosophy has found champions beyond the
boundaries of Germany and of Europe, and in all the languages of the
civilized world. On the other hand, the classic German philosophy has
had a sort of new-birth abroad, particularly in England and Scandinavia,
and even in Germany they appear to be substituting the thin soup of
eclecticism which seems to flow from the universities under the name of
philosophy.

Under these circumstances a short, compact explanation of our relations
to the Hegelian philosophy, of our going forth and departure from it,
appears to me to be more and more required. And just in the same way a
full recognition of the influence which Feuerbach, more than all the
other post-Hegelian philosophers, had over us, during the period of our
youthful enthusiasm, presents itself to me as an unendurable debt of
honor. I also seize the opportunity the more readily since the editor of
the "Neue Zeit" has asked me for a critical discussion of Starcke's book
on Feuerbach. My work was published in the fourth and fifth volumes of
1886 of that publication and here appears in a revised special edition.

Before sending this manuscript to press I once again hunted up and
examined the old manuscript of 1845-6. The part of it dealing with
Feuerbach is not complete. The portion completed consists in an
exposition of the materialistic view of history and only proves how
incomplete at that time was our knowledge of economic history. The
criticism of Feuerbach's doctrine is not given in it. It was therefore
unsuitable for our purpose. On the other hand, I have found in an old
volume of Marx the eleven essa